UNow Raises $17M To Make College Affordable, Accessible

UniversityNow Inc. (a.k.a. UNow), a San Francisco start-up that wants to make college education and degrees as affordable as a mobile phone bill, raised $17 million in a new venture capital round, VentureWire has learned.

Stephen DeBerry, a partner with Kapor Capital who holds a board seat at UNow, said investors believe Chief Executive Gene Wade’s for-profit, high-tech approach to college education will make a social impact while turning a real profit.

For one, most companies in education have been “cobbling existing [technical] solutions together” to provide online course offerings to students, DeBerry said. In contrast, UNow’s product is being built “with consumer web DNA.”

The company uses a freemium model, which has helped consumer apps including Hotmail, Dropbox, Hulu and Spotify gain wide adoption. Students can log in to use UNow’s software and digital curriculum, even if they haven’t registered to take a course for credit. When students feel ready to complete assignments and take tests for a grade, they convert to for-credit, paying users. This reduces the amount of time they require of a grader or exam administrator, and consequently the cost to master a skill, Wade suggests.

UNow is an accredited provider of bachelor’s, master’s and associate degrees, meaning employers and other schools should take it seriously if a student presents a degree from UNow. Students also should be able to transfer some or all of their credits to other schools if they have earned them on UNow’s service.

Wade said the company plans to use its new funding to develop more free, open-source content; form partnerships with groups working to educate adults and help them complete their college education without debt; and to let people know that UNow exists and how it works. Within a year, Wade hopes to have a few hundred graduates.

“This company is not reinventing Harvard online,” said another UNow investor, Daniel Pianko, a partner at University Ventures. “The idea is not to compete with those schools you’ve heard of, but to broaden and expand the market. When this is adopted widely, it will solve nascent social problems, like student debt and accessibility.”

U.S. college graduates in their early to mid-20s face a median $25,000 to $30,000 in debt, according to UNow’s market research.

Comments (3 of 3)

It seems that you have a bit of an attitude towards online schools. You stated that the automators in silicon valley didn't attend online schools....that is like saying the Wright brothers didn't fly in a 757.....oh, that's right...they didn't exist at those times.
The reality is that practically every university, including Harvard and Stanford, are developing online courses. I am curious, on what is your underlying disdain for the online environment based? As someone who holds multiple degrees from "brick and mortar" schools, including UNC, and two well-established medical schools (one in Nebraska and one in NC....and, yes, I am a doctor), I find courses in the online environment challenging and actually causing the individual student to delve more deeply into the material. As research has shown, adult learners actually engage better and learn more fully in this environment. Perhaps you should graduate yourself into the newly discovered environment that even the "ivy-league" schools are employing as opposed to suggesting you may be "more educated" with the implied "brick and mortar" degree you may hold......BTW- I have 2 bachelors, 2 masters, and a doctorate....I am well-versed in the system of higher education......

5:22 pm June 26, 2012

Lora Kolodny wrote:

The CEO and his investors fully disclose that they are not serving the same market of students who would have the means to attend a Harvard, Stanford or MIT.

9:20 am June 26, 2012

Gordon wrote:

What none of these people admit is that an online degree is worth NOTHING.

College is not about learning, and all about networking and becoming part of a community. Did any of the "automators" in Silicon Valley go to an online school? Would the elite VCs do this to their own kids? Of course not, they all go to Stanford, MIT, or Harvard, and laughing all the way to the bank about stupid "normal" people who think that "employers and other schools should take it seriously if a student presents a degree from UNow".

Because even if not, and after the damage has been done to hundreds of people, they will already have walked off with their VC millions, working on the "next great thing".

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